Alpine part ways with team principal Szafnauer and sporting director

Alpine part ways with team principal Otmar Szafnauer and sporting director Alan Permane after TORRID start to F1 season, with Bruno Famin stepping in to lead after the Belgian Grand Prix

• Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer has left the constructor after 18 months
• Sporting director Alan Permane also leaves the team after 34 years of service 
• Bruno Famin comes in as replacement team principal after the Belgian GP 

Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer has ‘parted ways’ with the calamity organisation after 18 months.

The respected American, 58, goes as a farcical game of musical chairs takes place among the company’s management structure. Bruno Famin, the FIA’s former over-zealous Covid lockdown enforcer, takes over as Szafnauer’s interim replacement.

Also leaving is sporting director Alan Permane, who had been with the team for 34 years. He was a whistleblower over the rigged 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, his name recorded in code by the FIA in their investigation as ‘Mr X’.

As for Oxford-based Szafnauer, his position had looked perilous since May, when Alpine chief executive Laurent Rossi – himself since moved sideways – described the team’s start to the season as ‘amateurish’.

One bone of contention between the French company’s hierarchy and Szafnauer was over how long it would take Alpine to achieve victories. Szafnauer believed it required 100 races to be fighting at the front, the timescale he says he was originally granted to bring about the necessary personnel and procedural change.

Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer has ‘parted ways’ with the organisation after 18 months

Sporting Director Alan Permane also leaves Alpine after 34 years with the constructor

A fourth-placed finish in last year’s constructors’ championship was encouraging, but they have slipped to sixth this year.

Szafnauer has argued that it is sometimes necessary to take a step backwards to move forwards, and cited Red Bull and Mercedes as examples of teams requiring five seasons to put together a winning outfit.

Both Szafnauer and Permane are due to undertake their usual activities through the Belgian Grand Prix this weekend. However, it is typical of the donkeys in charge at Alpine that they announced the departures just after FP1 and only a couple of hours before qualifying.

Bruno Famin steps in as the Interim leader at Alpine at the end of the Belgian GP weekend

Szafnauer secured a reputation for punching above his weight during his spell at Force India, helping them into the top four in successive seasons on a meagre budget. He has also worked in senior positions at BAR, Honda and Aston Martin, where he laid the groundwork for this year’s early-season blossoming.

Chief technical officer Pat Fry is also leaving Alpine to take up the same position at Williams, starting on November 1.

Famin, who thanked Szafnauer and Permane for their contributions, said: ‘We didn’t agree over the timeline to achieve success and how to go about it. It is a mutual agreement to split our ways.’

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